PROTOPHYTIC AND OTHER FUNGI. 



311 



is distinguished from the preceding by the greater thickness of its fila- 

 ments and by its rigidity. The B. anthracis, which is found in the 

 blood and tissues of animals affected with carbuncle and splenic fever, 

 usually presents itself in straight slender rods, of from 1-2, 000th to 1-10- 

 OOOths of an inch in length (Fig. 195); these, so long as they are im- 

 bedded in living tissues, seem to multiply indefinitely by transverse divi- 

 sion (Plate xii., 5, 6), thus continuing to produce short motile filaments, 

 furnished with flagella, without extending themselves into longer fila- 

 ments, or giving origin to spores. "When, however, these are ' cultivated ' 

 .at about the temperature of 90, they lengthen-out (after alternations 

 of rest and motion) into very long filaments (22), whose endoplasm 

 divides into numerous segments (9), which may again divide (10, 11), 

 .and then rapidly contract to form spores (12, 13). These spores, escap- 

 ing by the disintegration of the filaments (14, 17), and presenting them- 

 selves (1) as Micrococcus-forms, may either multiply as round or oval 

 cells by binary subdivision (2), sometimes aggregating into a zooglaea (3); 

 or they may at once develop themselves (4, 5 ) into the straight rods 

 characteristic of the type. The sporuliferous filaments (20, 21) are often 



FIG. 195. 



Matted Rods of Bacillus anthracis, extending in rcws between connective tissue-fibres of sub- 

 cutaneous tissue. 



very much smaller in diameter than the ordinary rods; and are disposed 

 to break up and aggregate themselves either into an ordinary zooglaea 

 (19), or into a double spiral rope-work (23). 1 It appears from Mr. 

 Ewart's later observations 2 on a Bacillus from sea-water resembling B. 

 anthracis in size and form, that by the continued subdivision and aggre- 

 gation of the spores (or, possibly, by the emission of their contents), 

 granular masses of considerable size are produced; the rupture of which 

 by pressure diffuses over the field their component granules, every one 

 of which seems capable, when placed in a drop of sea-water, of germin- 

 ating into a rod. If, as seems probable, similar l minimization' and 

 multiplication of the reproductive germs takes place in Bacteria also (as 

 it will be shown to do in the true Monads ( 417), the idea of the uni- 

 versal diffusion of such germs through the atmosphere, which seems ne- 

 cessary to account for the phenomena of putrefaction ( 310), should not 

 be found difficult of acceptance. 



307. The Vibriones, although very long known, have not been 

 .studied with the same completeness as other Schizomycetes. They re- 

 semble Bacilla in the slenderness of their forms; but instead of being 

 straight and rod-like, are flexible, with more or less of S-shaped curva- 



1 See Ewart, loo. cit. 



" Proceedings of Royal Society," June 20th, 1878. 



